d_rec_ks

The commercials for Avatar made me only want to wait for a DVD release to see the medicore special effects; the 10 second clip on the today show this morning of a shrill alien bitch moved it to the super-shitty category. Blech, that movie seems very Charleston Heston overdone...

Now, one of the major problems with that information cuisinart, the news, has with "Global Warming" is how they report it. They talk about, "increase in temperature," but forget to mention what that really means.

Climatologists take the results of their models and turn it into a single, nice and easy to work with number. (Most branches of science like to do that, in fact.) What they're really generating from the models are how the behavior of the Earth's atmosphere will change by dumping extra CO₂ into the air. They take those results, specifically the results for the Earth's surface, and average them, over the entire globe, over every day, day and night. This is the "temperature" that the news incorrectly spits at you.

It's the change in the average global atmospheric surface temperature.

The thing is, that's just the symptom of the real effect of pooping all of that CO₂ into the atmosphere. The real effect is that the Earth, "retains heat-energy" (kinda like retaining water, but with different noxious effects). I say, "heat-energy," not to confuse you, dear reader, but to explicitly point out that the climatologists are looking at energy, not "how warm do I feel."

Well, then, how can we convert that, "increase in average global atmospheric surface temperature," to an, "increase in the average global heat-energy at the 'surface' of the atmosphere?"

Grabbing the result from my last entry:

Δ Q=Δ T  cp  MA·(1−e−z· AE·ρ0/MA)

(6)

…where: ΔQ is the change in heat-energy, ΔT is the change in temperature;
c_p=1004 J/(K·kg) for dry air;
M_A=5.14·10¹⁸ kg is the mass of Earth's entire atmosphere;
A_E≃5.1·10¹⁴ m² is the surface area of the Earth;
and ρ₀≈1.2 kg/m³ density of the atmosphere at sea level.

Next, I'll point out that you're already familiar with energy. Sure, the scientific units of energy, "Joules," may not mean anything to you, but you do have a feel for what energy is using other units: tons of TNT.

4.184·10⁹ Joules == 1 ton TNT
1 Hiroshima == 15 kilotons TNT == 6.276·10¹³ Joules

At this point, it's just a matter of deciding how tall the "surface" of the atmosphere is, then plugging in temperature changes. I've seen definitions as low as 2 meters and as high as 500 meters. I'm going to plug both in, and see how they differ:
( Some Geekiness )So, if we make the "surface" of the atmosphere 500 meters thick, ΔQ is about 300 times larger than if we let it be only 2 meters (6.5 feet) thick.

Now, in Copenhagen, there's been a lot of talk about a, "2 °C temperature rise." You now know that they're really talking about a "2 °C increase in the global average surface temperature."

---

We can now convert that to the increase in average heat-energy in the surface layer of the Earth's atmosphere:

ΔQ = ΔT·2.5·10¹⁸ J
       = 590 Megatons of TNT
       = 39,000 Hiroshimas


Do you get it? Now do you understand what it means to have that "2 °C temperature rise"? It's equivalent to adding heat-energy equal to the energy output of 39,000 Hiroshima bombs. Every Year.

So, amongst the several recruiters who have contacted me are several "chop-shops." These are unethical barracudas who use job seekers and engage in shady practices.

One of the shady practices that I've encountered is Undermining, as in undermining your other interviews. Here's what usually happens: Shady Recruiter schedules a phone interview (or worse, an in-person one) without consulting you. When you confront them, threatening to sever contact, they claim that they hadn't really scheduled it but were only asking for your availability.

Um… when someone leaves you a voicemail saying, "Your interview with XYZCorp is scheduled for 11am tomorrow," that's not asking for availability.

[Normal Professional Behavior is to say," XYZCorp wants to interview you tomorrow at 11am. Please let me know if you're available and, if not, what time would be better."]


But the worst shady practice I've seen so far is Exclusivity Contracts. Shady Recruiter refuses to send your resume to an employer before you sign an "agreement" that Shady Recruiter is the sole and exclusive recruiter who will represent you, and that you cannot apply to said employer(s) any other way.

Ummm… hell NO.

I can list numerous ways that This Is Just Wrong<ol>

In high-tech, if a company receives the same resume twice, that person is marked as, "desperate," and will not be considered for any job until a certain time has elapsed. (6 months to 1 year)

At some companies, all resumes go through H.R. So, once they have your resume, that's it.

At some larger companies, H.R. knows that there may be more than one job that you may be a fit for. So, they allow the recruiter who submitted you to them to suggest your resume for new positions that may come along.
In this case, you have to wait 6 months after the last position you apply for before you can let a different recruiter submit your resume to the same company.

At some companies, positions are department-by-department. You can submit your resume only once to each department, but you can submit to as many different departments as there are appropriate jobs.

Like the previous case, but positions are handled hiring manager by hiring manager.

</ol> In other words, there's no need for Exclusivity Agreements from the job hunters, because the hiring company drives this anyhow.

I'm So Sick and Tired of dealing with Chop-Shops.